


The Library of Babel

by redreys



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, do not know how to tag this but remember: without tenderness we are in hell, from Agnes' pov, i giver her one (1) moment of fleeting joy sort of, i guess two vaguely developed ocs are featured, i love agnes so very much and she deserved so much better, oh and spoilers up to mag 167, ps: this is a jude perry hate blog, this somehow gets philosophical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:48:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24378970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redreys/pseuds/redreys
Summary: Agnes’ dream is burning out. The sacred texts are ending, and though that there are no more pages Agnes is still stuck looking like her twenty years old self.It occurs to her that she never walked with someone hand in hand. That no one ever hid the truth from her just to let her live in frivolous joy for a little longer.It occurs to Agnes that she is not sure she knows what joy is.
Comments: 22
Kudos: 26





	The Library of Babel

**Author's Note:**

> thank the heavens for remus @[blackbricket](https://blackcricket.tumblr.com/) who is a wonderful person and also read the first messy draft of this fic and gave me some very good advice. it helped lot and I now like this! it's a bit weird, but I would give my life to Agnese Montague and I am in literally in love with her. 
> 
> in any case, this does reference the Everything about Jorge Louis Borges' short story "Library of Babel". you can read it [here](https://sites.evergreen.edu/politicalshakespeares/wp-content/uploads/sites/226/2015/12/Borges-The-Library-of-Babel.pdf/) if you want (it's like, 7 pages long). that said, you absolutely don't need to read it to get this story, as Agnes herself doesn't know anything about it. 
> 
> this is set a while before Agnes' death. I did the math, and it's reasonable to believe she met Gertrude that same year. 
> 
> \+ **TWs** in the end notes

Behind her table, two people are speaking.

The coffee shop is not that crowded (it never really is), and usually Agnes doesn’t pay attention to the other customers, but there is _something_ to those two voices that catches her attention. 

One of them is bright, lively and fast paced; it rushes through the green of the words and jumps over any resemblance of punctuation. The other, quieter, shines in the cracks left unfilled by the first voice.

The resulting rhythm is imperfect, and it works.

Agnes attempts to focus on their conversation, but it proves harder than expected. Her thoughts keep drifting away, waiting to crash on cliffs that are not there. She hopes they will crumble as soon as they touch stone, but fire doesn’t break. It doesn’t shatter, it doesn’t care for solidity. Rather, it is always trapped mid-air. Torn between ash and a faint smell of destruction.

Beyond the glass, life moves in its chosen fashion. People go by in a silent, disorganized parade, and in spite of all efforts what catches Agnes’ eye is absence.

She can always tell if and when and how a person has been deprived of something that used to be theirs, and timely surprises herself with longing to _be_ the loss, turn into what can be annihilated, what can burn out without a trace and leave the aftermath of ruin to someone else. 

Her gaze is stuck on an old man, struggling to walk straight on a sidewalk, when she notices that the first voice is slowing down in pace.

There has been a change. The words are given more space now, and though she still won’t stop to tell them apart, in her mind she calls them deliberate.

It takes a while, but eventually she gets it. This is no longer a monologue. It’s a conversation.

There are laughs, sometimes, sunk below the letters. Embedded into the sentences— a given that demands no explanation. 

_That is just untrue_ , the first voice says, mid-dialogue, as Agnes struggles to listen along.

_Your gift ideas are always overcomplicated._

_They aren’t._

_Okay, let’s assume you are right. Just tell me. What’s your idea?_

Silence. Agnes takes in a breath, and the man from beyond the glass soldiers on just enough to escape her gaze.

_I want to put together a selection of short stories. Like, chosen specifically for them. I just think it's a wonderful birthday gift and a stellar idea._

_How is that not overcomplicated?_

_It isn’t. Listen, the birthday is two months away._

_It shouldn’t take two months to make a birthday present._

_Why not?_

_Because bookstores already sell selected short stories._

_But I want to select them myself._

_Yeah, like I said. Overcomplicated._

Agnes is thinking about Gertrude Robinson, and wishes she wasn’t. _Let’s not make this overcomplicated_ , she had said, as a way of greeting.

Gertrude has a sharp intonation when she speaks. She doesn’t move her hands around much. She is blunt, self-aware, closed-off and determined. Agnes didn’t particularly like her.

She had walked into the room and known at once that neither of them would ever spare the other a gentle look. Their gazes do not know how to search without trapping, claim without ruining. Paired together, all that was left was distance and stillness.

Gertrude has built a fight out of the inherent power of her eyes, but Agnes stares shyly at her own fading reflection in the glass and thinks she is only capable of waiting. She is always, in one way or another, standing in the middle of a field, fierce and fragile as only a fixed point in a broken world can be, waiting for the wind to brush against her skin and caress her when nothing else can.

Life passes through her, and all that sticks is what has already been stolen. 

Distantly, Agnes wishes she did not have a face to match with the name, a colour for her hair, a pair of eyes to think back to without affection.

Gertrude Robinson, she knows, is yet another destiny. A name signed on the bottom of the page before the contract can be written or agreed to. An anchor, an alibi, a condemnation.

Agnes is thinking about Gertrude Robinson, and wishes she wasn’t. And so, weakly, she tries not to, and lets herself fall back into the lulling conversation that is still happening in the background. 

_I am not transcribing them in my calligraphy,_ the second voice says.

_I know, hold your horses. There are pdfs we can copy and paste. Already checked._

_Mh, did you._

_I did. Most of the ones I thought of are public domain._

_Do I know them?_

_Perhaps some, yeah._

Agnes hasn’t read much in her life. She doesn’t even know whether she would like to try. Her story is not one with many options. It’s always been a battle, as it should be, and it’s a _restless_ sort of battle. You are given meaning and have no say on its colour, texture, taste. You are given this crown made of excruciating faith, and you are told you should not lose it.

Agnes wouldn’t know how to drop it if she tried.

As a young girl, she tried to paint her future like a prayer. She would say: I hope the future is quiet. I hope the fire sustains itself and is left free to burn. I hope what others call pain, I can finally think of as relief.

But the Scoured Earth never came. It is still a dream, far into a history she cannot seem to make, and is exhausted of. The language is wrong and the prophecies are not true. She was deemed worthy of being a deity, yes, but the worthiness was only ever there because it was decided there should be.

_There has been a mistake_ , Agnes thinks, and the sentence echoes in her mind without consequences.

_I have the first one with me._

_First short story?_

_Yeah. You haven’t read this one, but I think you’ll like it._

Agnes redirects her eyes to the sky, looks through the clouds as the two behind her keep talking. This story, from what she understands, it’s called The Library of Babel, and is written by someone named Jorge Louis Borges.

It’s surprisingly easy to lose herself in the narration, leave the Scoured Earth and Gertrude Robinson behind for what the first voice describes as a near never-ending library.

Humanity, they say, lives in it, and knows nothing else. The library is made up of identical hexagonal rooms, connected by stairs and small vestibules. In each room, a fixed number of shelves, and on each shelf a fixed number of books. Every book is unique, and contains a fixed number of letters randomly combined, which means that every book is a possibility— the only one of its kind in the entire library. 

_In there,_ the voice explains, _you could find your favorite book,_ _your least favorite book, your exact future, the description of your death and a false description of your death claiming to be the correct one for the entire time. There is also your whole life, and then your whole life again but with a missing comma or a different choice of words. Mostly, though, it is just gibberish._

The image roots itself into Agnes’ head in an instant. She knows she wouldn’t be able to touch the books (they would burn too easily) and that she wouldn’t know what to do in such an asphyxiating place, but she is at once drawn to and repulsed by the lack of meaning. Agnes walks into the dream and is afraid she should be running. Her breath trips for a moment, then falls back to stare at her own reflection. It tells her nothing.

_Some people have tried burning all useless books, but that would mean burning the vast majority of the library. Others claim there is a circular book_ _at the very center, and that that is God. Some devote their lives to a search for meaning that in most cases leads nowhere._

 _And what would_ you _do in that situation?_

_Oh, no, you’ve got to answer that question first. The story is mine, your turn now._

_The story is Jorge Louis Borges’._

A small laugh, instinctual and weightless.

_You and your fucking technicalities._

Agnes closes her eyes. The yellow cup is warm against her skin, and the coffee smells nice. There is still room for milk. There is always still room for milk.

She likes requesting something specific, making a deliberate choice, even if she has no reason to follow through.

What would Agnes Montague do in an endless library? She can’t picture herself unattended, unwanted.

Unnamed. Unbelieving, unbelieved. It’s an impossible situation. She wouldn’t fit. 

_So, are you going to answer, or what?_

The second voice hesitates. _I am not sure I have an answer, Moira._

_Then make one up. Dream a little._

_A book prison isn’t exactly my dream._

_Yeah, that’s the point._

Outside, a child walks past. He is smiling, eyes bright and expression lost in some pastel daydream. His mum, steadily holding his hand, is clearly on the verge of tears.

Something terrible happened, and she hasn’t told the child yet. Instead, she lets him walk. Rewrites the seconds as they go by.

_Well? What’s your answer?_

_Would you let me think?_

_Alright, alright. Take all the time you want, except don’t because I have to go back home at some point._

_Sure, Moira-love._

Agnes’ dream is burning out. The sacred texts are ending, and though that there are no more pages Agnes is still stuck looking like her twenty years old self.

As the child, too, walks out of Agnes’ gaze, it occurs to her that she never walked with someone hand in hand. That no one ever hid the truth from her just to let her live in frivolous joy for a little longer. 

It occurs to Agnes that she is not sure she knows what joy is.

_Moira-love_ , the voice said, and the intonation was lost on Agnes. She can’t tell if it was ironic.

_Am I alone?_

_Are you… alone?_

_Yeah. In this library of yours, am I alone? Could I choose to travel along with other people? I feel like I can’t figure out the meaning of things all on my own._

_Well, things don’t have to mean anything._

_No, they have. ‘This makes no sense’ is still an interpretation._

The first voice sighs. _Semantics._

_Am I alone?_

_No. Not if you don’t want to be._

_Good. Is the main character of the original story alone?_

Agnes has been raised by and with many different people. She could tell you their names, and little more.

Only a few stand out in her memory (this boy she saved for no reason, perhaps someone who looked at her gently) but, mostly, they all fade. 

Even now, there is little that matters to Agnes.

There is Jude, surely, and Jude cares about their relationships immensely, but that’s only her side of the story.

Agnes would call Jude’s satisfaction a small consolation if she felt like she needed to be comforted. She doesn’t, though. This isn’t a pity: this is normal. Together, they can burn a little brighter, and everyday Agnes swallows their shared breath like a lifesaving pill and pushes forward.

Is that what being alone is? Not once in Agnes’ life has a question like that mattered.

_I think so. It’s a bit nebulous, but I think they are alone._

_You_ think _they are alone?_

 _They talk of their solitude, but I don’t know if they have always been alone. It feels like it. It’s in the way they talk. They are incredibly charming,_ _though. Wait, let me read you some of the quotes._

There is some rustling of fabric. Someone looking through a backpack.

Agnes could turn around, and look. She could see for herself who is talking, why. She could tell them her name, ask about the Library. Phrase the questions that dig at the back of her mind. 

She won’t, though. She shouldn’t. 

_So, in this bit the narrator is essentially explaining that in the past more people lived in the Library, and there was like, one man for every three hexagons. Then they say: “An unspeakably melancholic memory: I have sometimes traveled for nights on end, down corridors and polished staircases, without coming across a single librarian”._ _I think it’s safe to assume that they were mostly alone._

_Do they ever speak of joy?_

A laugh, humourless _._

_They say- they say that when humanity figured out that the library contained every possible book, there was a moment of pure universal happiness. Everyone felt like life suddenly had a purpose._

_And then?_

_And then they realised that even meaning was accidental. That it sat somewhere far away, and only a handful of random people would ever be lucky enough to reach it. The narrator mentions some other myths and theories, like- wait. This one: “On some shelf in some hexagon, it was argued, there must exist a book that is the cipher and perfect compendium of all other books.”_

_Does the narrator find it?_

_No, no they don’t. But they say they hope someone else will: “Let heaven exist, though my own place be in hell. Let me be tortured and battered and annihilated, but let there be one instant, one creature, wherein thy enormous Library may find its justification”.  
_

A god, Agnes knows, should not hope. They should live on power and certainty alone, be aware of the future not just as a guess but a prediction.

Agnes has tried and tried to play the part, but this is one line of dialogue has always felt odd to pronounce. _Of course_ Agnes hopes.

She hopes in earnest, because she wants peace and tranquillity and fire. Her yearning is a crack in the glass, and light seeps out so much more than it gets in. Agnes hopes to make up for the doubt—hopes _because_ of the doubt. Because she would rather die than declare her life permanently meaningless. Because she wants a justification even if she is too exhausted to keep turning her whole life into a temple.

No meaning ever needs to be true. It’s enough for it to be there, and survive whatever fire will witness the next birth.

_Do they believe in destiny?_

_What do you mean?_

_They talk of heaven and hell. Do you think they see themself as deserving of heaven? Of finding that one true book?_

_I am not sure that’s the point._

_Why?_

_I don’t think they see life that way. They say that no book in the library can be defined as ‘nonsense’. Everything is a language, even if that language won’t ever exist. Maybe they believe meaning is everywhere. It’s just arbitrary and not our meaning._

_What is ‘our meaning’?_

_Whatever you want it to be, I guess. Listen here. It goes: “there is no syllable one can speak that is not filled with tenderness and terror, that is not, in one of those languages, the mighty name of a god”._

A moment of silence. Then:

_And what do you choose?_

_Sorry?_

_Out of those, what do you choose. Are we the mighty name of a god, are we tenderness, are we terror?_

Agnes means holy.

She doesn’t remember when she first learned that. Someone must have told her. She only knows it felt natural. _Of course_ it means holy. What else could it mean. What else could her mother have gifted her, if not a name that stands for her destiny. Her assigned, excruciating meaning.

She had never thought to change it, during all those years. Never thought she was allowed to give it any other meaning. She can’t think it now, either, but she lets the idea go by. Sees it drift away, and waves it hello.

_Can’t we be all three? Just- tender, terrifying gods?_

_You are not terrifying._

_I am, Moira. You are just denying the evidence here._

_What about: I’m terrifying, you are tender._

_Hey, listen. We contain multitudes._

_I know, that’s why we are gods._

_Mh, do gods contain multitudes? Isn’t that a human thing? Contradiction?_

_I don’t know. Maybe._

One cloudy day, Agnes was walking alone in a park, when she heard two women sing along to the same song. They were both quite old and sat close on the same bench. They remembered the song well. Once it ended, one of them said: _Agnes, goodness. I can’t believe you still sing so beautifully._

They way she said the name— it didn’t _feel_ just holy, it sounded like more. Agnes is not good with intonation, and she still couldn’t tell if it was ironic. But: _Agnes, goodness. Moira-love._ It’s safe. That, at least, she knows to be true.

_Moira. What about your answer? I have told you mine._

_So you have. Mh. I don’t know. I mean, it helps to know we aren’t actually in a library prison._

_Yeah, that’s what I said, and you dismissed me by saying that wasn’t a fun-_

_You know what? I think I would make a collage._

_A collage._

_Yeah, move around the letters in the books until they make sense._

_That is stupid and impractical, but fine. What would it say?_

Agnes closes her eyes again. Wonders if she wants to know— if she should know. It’s already been an hour. She is supposed to leave.

What would it say? 

_I need to think about that. Too loaded of a question._

_I mean, there are loads of books, aren’t there?_

_Yeah, so?_

_So we’ve got a few tries._

Abruptly, Agnes turns around.

One of them has a hat, the other a bright scarf.

Brown skin, delicate fingers. Blue hair, earrings. A pair of glasses, a lot of rings. Tattoos; elegant, cheap clothes. Dark circles under the eyes, warm cheeks. A necklace, freckles. On the table: three notebooks, keys, spare change, joined hands.

They are looking at each other. 

_It wasn’t ironic_ , Agnes thinks.

_In our next lives, then, once we are both trapped into Borges’ library-_

_I’ll look for you, and we make a wonderful collage._

_Okay,_ Moira says. _I can live with that._

_Me too._

Agnes smiles. It’s genuine— it’s full. It’s unnecessary, and it’s there.

 _I hope you are happy_ , she thinks, against every part of her that asks for destruction. _I hope you are happy_ , she repeats, quiet in her head, stubborn and defiant, and hopes there is a story for her, too, even though she will never find it.

Hopes she could, can be someone’s _Agnes, goodness._

Knows that in a single, improbable story, she is. Knows that she must be.

_You who read me— are you certain you understand my language?_

_What? Are you flirting at me?_

Moira laughs, lights up a little.

_No, it’s. It’s another quote from the story._

_Oh._

_Do you, though?_

_I’d like to think so._

_Good. That’s- nice._

_By the way, how does the story end?_

_Mh, they- they say that their solitude is “cheered by that elegant hope”. The hope is that there is some sort of order to things, that the library is circular._

_Do you like that?_

_Not necessarily. I like the idea of elegant hope, though._

_So we keep that._

_So we keep that._

_Good talk._

_Yeah._

Moira moves forward to- reach out presumably, hug, kiss, and Agnes closes her eyes just once more.

_Agnes, goodness_ , she thinks, and lets it linger. _Not holy, not sacred._

 _Agnes_ , without fire without flames.

Full of light.

Maybe not here. But somewhere.

Somewhere. 

**Author's Note:**

>  **TWs:** this is from Agnes' pov, and though this is a positive moment for her, she has the general "I can't make my own choices" mindset that filters through everything. she accepts what she shouldn't, and does think of death as an escape. 
> 
> comments are as always appreciated, and you can find me on tumblr as [mxrspider](https://mxrspider.tumblr.com/). in any case, thank you for reading! Agnes is not an easy character to write, so hope I did her justice + hope you liked this 🌻


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